Sunday, February 17, 2008

Gov. Strickland has marching orders


This is definitely not a political blog. But since the US presidential nominating process is going to be rolling through my state 16 days from now, I thought that it may be interesting to make a few observations. Channel surfing this evening, I saw the interview above, which I thought was fascinating.

The interview has two governors from the same Democratic Party who are supporting two different candidates for the nomination. The first is Governor James Doyle from Wisconsin (pictured to left above) who is supporting Sen. Barack Obama for the Demorcatic Presidential nomination. The second is Governor Ted Strickland from Ohio (pictured to right above) who is supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton. I have particular interest in this because Gov. Strickland was my congressman before being elected to the Governor's Mansion.

Even if you don't know anything about politics or don't care about politics, I encourage you to check out this eight and a half minute interview. I think it will summarize what is happening in this race. You'll see Gov. Doyle enthusiastically supporting his candidate. He seems very calm and more conversational.

Meanwhile, Gov. Strickland seems very tense, and at times defensive. It looks like he was given the talking points to repeat time and time again during the interview. It looks like he's been put under a lot of pressure to deliver Ohio to the Senator from New York.

Finally, the most interesting answer I saw was when Gov. Strickland was asked whether he would accept the Vice-President position if it was offered to him. "I don't want to be Vice-President," was his first response. That's telling me either that he was told to say that, or he's looking ahead to 2012 for a Presidential run of his own.

One thing that I think will definitely happen is that if Ohio does go for Hillary on March 4th, and if she is eventually elected president, Gov Strickland will be moving back to Washington - probably in a high-up cabinet position - because, basically, that's how politics works. And, if anything else, Ted Strickland is a good politician. I'm Dr. A, and I approved this message....

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